Henry Labouchère

Henry Du Pré Labouchère (9 November 1831 – 15 January 1912) was an English politician, writer, publisher and theatre owner in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He is now most remembered for the Labouchère Amendment, which for the first time criminalised all male homosexual activity in the United Kingdom.

Henry Labouchère

Quotes

• Democrats are told that they are dreamers, and why? Because they assert that, if power be placed in the hands of the many, the many will exercise it for their own benefit Is it not a still wilder dream to suppose that the many will in future possess power, and use it not to secure what they consider to be their interests, but to serve those of others? Is it imagined that artisans in our great manufacturing towns are so satisfied with their present position that they will hurry to the polls to register their votes in favor of a system which divides us socially, politically, and economically, to classes, and places them at the bottom with hardly a possibility of using? Is the lot (of the agricultural labourer) so happy a one that he will humbly and cheerfully affix his cross to the name of the man who tells him that it can never be changed for the better? We know that artisans and agricultural labourers will approach the consideration of political and social problems with fresh and vigorous minds For the moment, we demand the equahsation of the franchise Our next demands will be electoral districts, cheap elections, payment of members, and abolition of hereditary legislators When our demands are complied with, we shall be thankful, but we shall not rest On the contrary, having forged an instrument for democratic legislation, we shall use it.
  • Fortnightly Review (March 1, 1883); cited from Henry James Sumner Maine, popular government, p.64